French Court Orders ISPs To Block Gambling Websites

from the hello,-censorship dept

While there's a lot of attention being paid to the French "three strikes law," and the organization, Hadopi, that is planning a system for implementing it, it appears that another form of internet censorship is happening via the courts in France. Reader JJ sends over the news that ISPs in France are being ordered to block access to certain "unauthorized" gambling websites. The country's gambling regulator, Arjel, ordered the ISPs to block certain gambling sites, and after a court battle, it appears Arjel has won. Effectively, the court has ruled that the French government can order ISPs to censor the internet, which seems like the sort of story that should be getting more attention.

Re: move to a more democratic country

Care to clarify?

The UK-based (actually mostly Gibraltar-based) online casinos have a relatively small footprint in the French market anyway. My company's implementing the block today, and we doubt anybody will really notice outside of a handful of regular customers. Those companies actually targeting the French market (mainly based in Malta) will probably already have licences.

If you're talking about the implications for free speech, the French have always had their own way of doing things and I doubt that a block on unlicensed entities in an already heavily regulated industry will make much difference to any of the countries you mention. At the end of the day, this is simply the French being the French and doing things their way. It's a little silly, but it won't affect the rest of the world.

nothing wrong here, if they are illegal in the country or dont have proper paid license's to operate, block them, if a physical brick and mortar store tried to open and didnt have legal permits, it would get shut down, this is no difference

just because its on the net doesnt make make some holy site that no country can regulate or block

WOW

"nothing wrong here, if they are illegal in the country or dont have proper paid license's to operate, block them, if a physical brick and mortar store tried to open and didnt have legal permits, it would get shut down, this is no difference

just because its on the net doesnt make make some holy site that no country can regulate or block"

lol... as if blocking them will do anything. With all this blocking and censorship, it's only a matter of time before the average user is using encryption, and has proxies in several countries....